Hello People !
I am really new in Stock Trade and i want to busy some Stocks online.....Please give me some more information on how it works and Steps to follow for buying or trading stock online. Also, what would be the best, low rate online stocktrade website for beginners ?
Thank you.

Yes, I use Zecco and now planning to leave it for good. Prob will move with sharebuilder.com as its a part of ING. I can have saving checking and investing account at once place that way. Zecco was attractive because it was giving 10 free trades, now you need to have 25K for 10 free trades, so I am out.

Plus sharebuilder is about the same price. $4 per trade and I guess has better service. Will let u know once I move.

 

purana_kagaz,
It's good you are thinking about investing in stocks. IMO, right now is the best time to buy. If you miss this opportunity, you will be regretting it for years to come. You know what they say, buy when everyone is selling, and sell when everyone is buying! Just to give an example, citigroup(C) is trading for $3 a share, Bank of America(BAC) is trading for less than 8 bucks. You won't see prices like for the next, umm, eternity! The market will bounce, as it eventually does and if you are going for long [term investment, say at least 2-3 years], I say any decent company (like Apple, Google, GE) will be a fine investment.  But do your homework before you make any investment decisions. You should want to invest, not speculate!

In terms of how to get started on online trading, all you have to do is register in one of those hundred online sites. What you need is some money ( I would say start with 5K), a SS card and you will be set. I would recommend etrade.com, ameritrade.com or scottrade.com .  Though a bit expensive (a trade will cost you 8-12 bucks), these are pretty popular sites and have very fast and reliable transaction time. I have heard a lot of complains about sharebuilder.com , where a commission for a trade is only 4 bucks. But people have said it takes hours, not seconds for your transaction to occur. So, spend a few extra bucks for a good service if you are going to invest at least 1K or more.
All right, good luck and I hope you make it rain.

Darknight, if you have no input in the thread, shut your disgusting mouth will ya.

Dude why do you want to waste your money....just wait till dow hits 5500  so that you can buy a ticket to go back home....jsut kidding.....Dont use zecco.com they will screw you big time...sharebuilder worst one.....try ameritrade.....no matter what you do you will loose 95% of time on stoks...if you really want to invest wait till april end....

Use etrade brother, it might cost you a little more but its worth it. I used scottrade for a while,it sucks, you can't buy stocks lower than 3 bucks, you have to call and they don't have good platform. If you want to invest, it is the time to do so; may be you wanna wait when the market goes down another 400-500points, i doubt it will go lower than that cauz i see some financial are slowly rebounding, that is a good sign along with the trouble asset plan by current administration, it looks like the rally might gain some momentum. Use your good jusdgement and analysis to invest in stocks, don't  just go by somebody's recommendation or some analyst says to buy it. I look for fundamentally sound company with good business plan, with a strong balance sheet and good cash flow. It will pay you over time. Before investing read some books and investopedia.com is a good site to start with. Good luck !

fortune, you take this forum way too seriously. Lighten up!

"But do your homework before you make any investment decisions"..what unmitigated bullcrap!

what homework? Do you even realized number of qualitative factors that goes into valuing a stock?

There is no homework an individual can do, leave aside a some who wants to just get started.

Next you might say look at P/E, EPS, FCFF, do a residual valuation, gordon model, cashflow model.

not much use for individuals....we would never know what they cooking in their balance sheet or income statement.

Recommending individual stocks like GE...now that is speculating!!

Amen

wit's end,
Of course I take forums seriously because I am not here to make a mockery of myself. When people are looking for suggestions, I try my best to help. Since you have spewed your guts about nothing related to what the originator of the thread is requesting for (for the second time) I will have to seriously reconsider next time I reply to your nonsense.

You said, ""But do your homework before you make any investment decisions"..what unmitigated bullcrap!"
What bullcrap indeed. You expect someone to just buy stocks based on 'recommendations?' Doing homework doesn't mean solving Black-Scholes PDEs to find the value of the stock. It means looking at the fundamentals. And yes, P/E and EPS ratios are in the fundamentals.

"we would never know what they cooking in their balance sheet or income statement. "
What, you think every company is Enron? Unless you are an insider, you have no idea of what the company is cooking. There has to be trust, otherwise there wouldn't be a stock market.
Of course the stock market is volatile, but sometimes you can be blatently stupid in terms of investing.

"Recommending individual stocks like GE...now that is speculating!!"
You are seriously telling me GE is not undervalued? Quote me in a year! The current price is 10.41.

I did some research on online brokerage firms.  Yes, you are right.  Zecco, while very cheap, ranks at the bottom on almost all categories, particularly customer service.  I read Zecco is to be avoided despite its low cost.  Sharebuilder, now part of ING, is an ok option but in order to qualify for its $4 per trade cost, you have to schedule your transaction for following Tuesday.  If you want integrated banking, eTrade is an option, but it charges you $9.99 per trade.  The highest rated broker is TD America.  But they charge around $12.99 per trade.  Tradeking is a very good choice with low cost of $4.95 per trade, but if you buy penny stocks (<$1), they charge you $1 per share.  Best balance I saw was Scottrade.  It ranked among the highest in almost all categories and charges $6.99 per trade.

Hope this helps.

Yup, I am thinking of buying GE stocks now, just when everybody is scared of it and that it has lost its Moody's AAA rating which it had kept since 1967.

How about Citi and AIG?

 

hellkite Click here to subscribe to hellkite's postings. You will get notification when the users posts in sajha. [Subscribe] Posted on 03-10-09 7:14 PM     Reply | Notify Admin

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I am well aware of Cornell's reputation and ranking. I was looking for more personal experience from people who are/were at Cornell or other similarly ranked university. Thanks all.

 

do you see the response above from the original poster. To me it seems as if the person agrees with me.

And comming to this post...the question posed is not which stocks to buy, rather how to get started...

you just want to flaunt ever lil things that you think you know. And just a fleeting comment....in every forum there was, is and will have comments that is totally unrelated to the original subject...so, my fren get used to it.

Amen!

Etrade is expensive if you buy more than 5000 stocks. Go with ameritrade- if you open your account with a minimum of $2000.00, then you can trade unlimited trade for free for the first 30 days.

Riten,
I am all long for GE but I am still skeptical about citi and AIG. I did buy some C shares to test the waters. When you see prices jump 20% in blue chip stocks, it's hard to not jump in the wagon. I guess C wouldn't be bad in the long term but I am waiting for some signs of recovery in the financials. Lets see what citi has to offer in April 17's Q1 earnings. Pandit said the bank has been profitable for the first two months. AIG is still early to make any decisions.

wit's end,

I am done with your useless responses. If you have nothing to share
then put a sock in it. Don't be a kid and print screen previous threads
to massage your ego. If you actually read my comments, I had given a
name for the person to contact. Anyways, let's leave that matter alone.

GE will go bankrupt like GM becoz of GE Capital...becareful....

By the way, while you buy stock does they really talk about residency/citizenship. One of my friend tried to get an account for buying stock and he was not able to go further as no-one with citizenship helped him buy the stocks.
Can anyone just elaborate on this issue whether/not  it matters residency or anyone can buy it?
Thankx
-Score

score,
like I mentioned before, all you need is a Social Security number. Yes you have to be resident of the US. That doesn't mean you have to be a citizen or a GC holder. An F1 student can quality as resident.

Scottrade is 7 bucks per trade, and comes with very good customer service and branches all over the country. There are some online brokers who offer free trades. In fact, there is no such a thing as "free". They all have caveats (e.g. minimum 25,000 balance). But having said that, if you are willing to meet the minimum balance, then they could your best bet. You could be trading for free. There are some brokers (e.g. Ameritrade) who offer teaser rates (e.g. 1 month free, first 100 trades free, etc) but do not offer competitive trading rates. I would not be attracted with those freebies because finally I would end up paying even more. Many online brokers charge account transfer fee of upto $250 if you want to transfer to some other brokers. So, you also do not want to constantly open and close your accounts. One of the cheapest brokers I have seen is sogotrade.com. Its website is not bad at all, offers $3/trade, also gives some promotional freebies. I see two choices for you - scottrade or sogotrade.

Good to have few Nepalese friends are in trading business..I am newbie and do not have much to share,but I seriously think,this is a right time for investment for following reasons

1)  For last three weeks,Stock is trying to take momentum for upward trend (Bottom is forming now)

2)  The reason for US financial Crisis is mortgage mess..Some good housing data statrted to come which is positive sign of economic recovery

3) US GDP is mostly contributed by spending and Fed willl pouring 1.5 trillion dollar into economy which will help loosen credit crisis ultimately help GDP by consumer spending

4) Normally,Stock market shows +ve sign 6/9 months before economic revival..we are already in 15 months recession and will not last more than a year from now I believe..

As i said earlier,I am novice and please do not take it as recommendation to jump into stock market..

Thanks

 

Thankx fortunefaded........

I thought it was right time to buy stocks this time and I invested around 3000$, which I had extra money. I don’t suggest you guys to sell other properties or borrow money to buy stocks. If you have extra money it won’t hurt to spend around 5000 or less.  I purchased Citi, Aig, Fannie May, GE, Ford, and some other less than 1$ stocks. Their stocks were up to 70$ within 3 years and right now just a buck or so. It’s a gamble but lot better than playing at casinos or buying scratch offs.

My suggestion is to you guy is look for the company’s stock within 3 years if any stock was more than 35$ or so and right now 2$ or less jut buy it and forget about it for 1-2 years.

Bisal., Which Website do u use for buying stocks ?
Any idea about Sogotrade.com ? how good is sogotrade ? It looks cheap , only $3 to buy stocks.

Thanks.

Get out from Citi, AIG , FRE, FNM ,GE, GM, F........if anyone wants to make just sort these......